Final passage

The fate of the legislation, however, was not certain, as there were considerable differences between the Senate and House versions that would have to be reconciled. Complicating matters was the election to the Senate of Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who filled the seat that had been temporarily occupied by Democrat Paul Kirk following the death of Ted Kennedy. The election of Brown, who had campaigned actively against the health bill, deprived the Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority and made prospects for final passage uncertain.

In March 2010, just as the historic measure teetered on the brink of defeat, Obama and Democratic leaders—notably Senate majority leader Harry Reid and speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi—mounted a last-ditch campaign followed by legislative maneuvering. Faced with the prospect of defeat of health care reform, the Democrats eventually settled on a strategy whereby the House of Representatives would pass the Senate version of the bill, thereby making it law, and then immediately pass a bill amending (“fixing”) the legislation that it would send to the Senate. Abortion once again threatened to derail the legislation, since Stupak and a group of pro-life Democrats objected to the Senate language on abortion, but Obama intervened by pledging to issue an executive order clarifying that federal money could not be used to provide abortions. Stupak and 218 other Democrats gave final approval to the Senate version of the bill on March 21 in an atmosphere that was often heated both inside and outside the House chamber; all Republicans, including Cao, opposed the Senate bill. The package of “fixes” then passed the House 220–211 and was subsequently approved by the Senate and again by the House, because provisions related to student loans were stripped as a rules violation. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law by Obama on March 23, along with the fixes bill on March 30.

Following the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans—who had pledged during the campaign to repeal the health care bill—gained control of the House of Representatives. In one of their first acts, the House Republicans, with three Democrats, voted in January 2011 to repeal the legislation, 245–189. The following month, however, the repeal failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate on a party-line vote.

The Affordable Care Act was also challenged by the attorneys general in more than a dozen states who filed suit, charging that the reform, in particular the individual mandate (the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty), was unconstitutional. Although a number of lawsuits were dismissed, some federal judges ruled beginning in late 2010 that Congress had, by enacting the individual mandate (due to take effect in 2014), exceeded the authority granted it by the commerce clause and the general welfare clause. None of these judges, however, halted the implementation of the law while the administration appealed. In March 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court heard challenges to the Affordable Care Act in the Affordable Care Act cases. In its ruling, issued in June 2012, the court held (5–4) that the individual mandate was constitutional under Congress’s taxing power and that the law’s expansion of Medicaid—the national health-insurance program for the poor, jointly funded by the federal government and the states—was constitutional as long as states that refused to expand their Medicaid rolls did not lose federal Medicaid funding for existing beneficiaries.

Inspire your inbox –
Sign up for daily fun facts about this day in history, updates, and special offers.

By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Click here to view our Privacy Notice. Easy unsubscribe links are provided in every email.

Thank you for subscribing!

Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox.